


Things I Don't Remember Forgetting

by notcool



Series: Show Me Your Darkness (Sanders Sides Fantasy AU) [6]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Anxiety, Gen, Magic, Memory Loss, Sleep Deprivation, Unreliable Narrator, Virge is just confused af, and honestly same, sorcerer Virgil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27953042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcool/pseuds/notcool
Summary: The tower was safe. The tower was invulnerable. The tower was impossible to reach. The tower was... no longer any of the above.Janus has been gone too long, and Virgil can only watch as his world crumbles around him.(Direct prequel to The Sorcerer)
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders
Series: Show Me Your Darkness (Sanders Sides Fantasy AU) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980931
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	Things I Don't Remember Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little glimpse into Virgil's world

_“Forgetting is, I think, a form of protection.”_

\- Daisy Johnson, Everything Under

\-------

“What do you mean, you’re going back?” Virgil was frozen with two vials in his hands, the reason he’d picked them up to begin with completely forgotten as he stared slack-jawed at his friend. “Isn’t the whole point of this tower supposed to be to keep us away from there?”

Janus didn’t look at him, mismatched eyes intently focused on the satchel he was slowly packing. “I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to, Virgil, but there is something I must attend to. I won’t be gone long.”

“But-” Virgil opened and closed his mouth several times before finally managing words. “You can’t just _leave_!”

Janus made a smile that was borderline grimace, still not looking up. “I promise I will be back as soon as I can. In the meantime the tower will provide for and protect you as always. Everything will be alright.”

Virgil didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. That city was a whirlwind of anger and fear and bloodshed, a place where you had to fight with everything in you nonstop just to survive - how could that be _alright_?

“Virgil,” Janus’ hand was suddenly on his shoulder, the other gently tugging the vials from Virgil’s loose grasp. He still wouldn’t meet Virgil’s eyes. “I just need you to trust me. Trust me to take care of myself. I will be just fine. You are more than capable of keeping the tower in order in the meantime, hm?”

Virgil nodded slightly, biting his lip as Janus carefully steered him to sit on the edge of his bed. “I… I…”

“I have to go now, Virgil.” Janus was across the room again, tying his satchel shut and swinging it over his shoulder. He met Virgil’s gaze, just for half a moment, and Virgil didn’t like the unfamiliar swirl of emotions he found there. 

“Janus, I-”

Janus swept around, his cloak swishing dramatically with the movement as he crossed to the door. He pushed the door open, pausing momentarily at the threshold. “Make sure to sleep, Virgil. I know how you get when you’re anxious.”

If Virgil had even had a reply, there was no time to give it.

The door was swinging shut and all Virgil could do was stare at it, completely at a loss.

Where was Janus going? What could possibly be so important as to warrant risking the perils of that city?

Virgil vaguely felt sick, but he forced the feeling down. There was nothing he could do. He would have to trust Janus, or at least pretend to for the sake of his own nerves. It wouldn’t be long, right? Janus would be back soon…

Janus was not back soon.

Three days had come and gone, and it was getting harder and harder to keep that sickening feeling of dread smashed down.

Virgil tried to sleep - he did! Told himself it was unreasonable to be this anxious, at least so far. That given the tower’s unpredictable location Janus may at this time only just be reaching his destination, let alone gotten his affairs in order and be headed back. But anxiety, as it so happened, didn’t much care as to whether it was reasonable or not.

So Virgil paced. He paced, he paced, he paced, wondering if wearing a path in the floor would annoy Janus enough to make him come back faster. Janus was still connected to the tower right? He would be able to find his way back? He hadn't gone too far out, had he?

“It’s fine - it’s fine!” Virgil barked out a laugh, the sound bitter and a little feral. “Janus is fine! He’ll be back soon and everything’ll be just fine!”

He stopped pacing, hugging his arms around his middle and huffing out another laugh. “Great. Now I’m talking to myself! Just- just perfect!”

Pacing, pacing, pacing…

It was on day five that Virgil decided he _had_ to do something. What, he had no idea, but something! None of the books and alchemy materials around seemed even remotely helpful, but...

stood on the desk chair to reach the top of the bookshelf, where Janus kept the books he thought Virgil didn’t know about.

Virgil had always been curious, yes, but given the possibility of said books housing dark magics or even being cursed themselves, he’d respectfully kept his distance. Now, though, he truly couldn’t care less, and didn’t hesitate to drag down the aged tomes and immediately open the first one he reached. 

And… that wasn’t a language Virgil knew. It was sharp and jagged, but between the awkward slant of the text and the familiar style of the stray drawings in the margins, Janus had written it himself. He flipped through a few more pages, but the entire thing seemed to be in the mystery-language.

Curse Janus and his obsession with learning things. Why couldn’t he have written in something Virgil understood?

With a growl he plopped to the floor, taking the rest of the off-limits books with him and opening a new one on his lap.

…also in the weird, spikey language. There were a lot more drawings, though, so even without words Virgil was at least able to label the yellowed pages as some kind of plant journal (although several of the pictured plants themselves were entirely foreign to him).

Virgil spent the next six hours going through the books, then going through them again, trying to decipher the pages through Janus’ delicate and precise artwork. A few pages in one of the books shimmered with some kind of enchantment, but other than a soft buzzing sensation when he touched them, he couldn’t figure out a thing about them.

It was exhausting. When had he last slept again? Virgil couldn’t remember.

In the back of his mind he could hear the slightest echo of Janus’ voice, telling him to sleep, that he needed to take care of himself.

His bed looked so far away, though. All the way across the room! Maybe he’d just sleep here…

The flagstones were cold as he curled up around one of Janus’ books, and half-consciously Virgil flicked his wrist, dragging the blanket off his bed and around him with a swirling tendril of violet magic.

Yes, he would sleep a little, and then if Janus wasn’t back when he awoke he would try and figure out something else…

Heat. Burning - no, _scorching_ , terribly unnatural heat that made the air sizzle and sent sparks of flickering power flying every which way.

Virgil was on his feet, stumbling away from the sensation before he could even tell what was causing it. When the world blinked into focus, his heart caught in his throat - it was the crystal. _The_ crystal!

It wasn’t supposed to glow like that! Wasn’t supposed to blaze with searing light, wasn’t supposed to be run through with cracks, wasn’t supposed to be doing anything but sitting there, inanimate, on its shelf in the back of the room, peacefully doing its job…

_“You mean it?” A younger Virgil asked timidly. “I… I can stay?”_

_Janus nodded with a soft hum, movements precise as he unfolded spare blankets from the open chest and arranged them in one of the vacant window bays to make a bed. “Of course. I wouldn’t make you go back there. That city is no place for our kind.”_

_Virgil didn’t ask what ‘our kind’ meant. No words used could ever truly define the feeling of deep, inescapable wrongness that told Virgil, long before Janus had ever arrived, that he didn’t belong there._

_He glanced around the large room, its thick walls feeling almost alive, as though the tower were a great, powerful beat curled around him defensively. For the first time in all he could remember, that feeling of wrongness was absent._

_It felt almost too good to be true._

_“...What if they come looking for me?”_

_Janus glanced to him, mismatched eyes flickering through a multitude of emotions in that split second. “They won’t find you here. This is a place they cannot reach.”_

_“But…” Virgil’s chest was tight; he didn’t want to have to go back to that wrongness, that offsetting feeling that gained him nothing but angry glares and restless nights. “...How can you be sure?”_

_Janus stilled, and for a moment Virgil thought he’d said something wrong, but before he could properly panic Janus sighed and dropped the blanket he was holding, turning to face Virgil._

_“Do you see this?” Janus caught the thing chain of his necklace between two fingers, holding it out from his chest to let the amber crystal attached to it dangle in front of him._

_Virgil swallowed nervously. He nodded._

_“This is part of the magic that envelops this tower.” Janus crossed to the back of the room, taking something off the shelf and turning so Virgil could see. It was another amber crystal, this one much larger than the one around Janus’ neck - just barely large enough to warrant being held with two hands._

_“This is the other part.” Janus explained. “These crystals are the power source to our defenses. This one,” he gestured with the crystal in his hands, “keeps the tower far out of anyone’s reach. The only way someone can get in,” he returned the large crystal to the shelf and once again held up his necklace. “Is with this as the key.”_

_Virgil glanced between the crystals a moment. He cautiously edged a little closer, taking in their smooth, unnatural colour that ever so slightly seemed to waver the air around it._

_“What are they?” He asked finally. “I’ve never seen this kind of crystal.”_

_Janus smiled. The expression was borderline bitter, but there was a fondness there, too. “I made them.” He said simply. “And they will keep you safe, I promise.”_

…This wasn’t good. This was very, very not good. It was, in fact, very, very bad.

In all the time Virgil had lived in the tower, that crystal had never so much as glowed, let alone… whatever the hell this was.

Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

The cracks in the crystal’s surface were widening, deepening, nearly cutting all the way through.

Virgil felt dizzy.

He should be trying to do something about it, right? He really should. He probably should? Why was the ground shaking?

Virgil didn’t remember falling, but he was on the floor somehow, so he must have at some point. The burning light was gone. The ground was still. He had the distinct feeling that he was forgetting something important, but for the life of him couldn’t imagine what.

The single candle on the desk was nearly burnt to the bottom - hadn't it been fresh just a little bit ago?

Virgil shook himself. He found the desk chair pulled out into the room, right near him (odd, he didn’t remember moving it) and used it to pull himself to his feet.

He took a step, and something crunched.

Virgil narrowed his eyes at the floor.

Amber. Minuscule grains of shining amber rock reflecting in the weak light, scattered across the flagstones like a creeping frost.

Virgil’s gaze trailed the glistening as it condensed into larger chunks of crystal, seeming to originate from the shelf in the back of the room.

For a long moment Virgil just stared at it. The broken crystal had been important. Or, he thought it had been. The reason why gracefully sidestepped all his mental grasps towards it. There was that feeling again, the whisper in the back of his mind that insisted he was forgetting something he really shouldn’t have forgotten.

The whisper almost sounded familiar, like the voice of someone he should know, but… he seemed to have forgotten that as well.

Wind hissed outside, rattling the wooden shutters of the room’s windows.

Wind?

Virgil unfroze, practically leaping to the nearest window and fumbling with the latch to open them up, breath catching when he opened them to find a starlit forest below, stretching as far as he could see.

His head was fuzzy, but one thought shot clear through the haze, ringing in his ears: _he wasn’t supposed to be here._


End file.
